been a while

It's been a while since I've written. School had an allergy incident that was dealt with very nicely--undisclosed nuts in the sauce for a chicken dish. Kid had an Epi and went to hosptial accompanied by nurse; all other nut-allergic kids were spoken to in class and lunchroon to make sure that they knew not to eat the chicken. Sauce was removed. But just goes to show how easily one mistake can lead to something pretty scary. Kid was fine next day--but I'mthinking of his family--yikes I'd be super nervous. Any hopes of mine eating at the cafeteria went out the window even though never would have touched a sauce...but safer to eat what I send from home. Hey, I'll miss it when I don't have to make lunch anymore--just like we all miss the the things our kids did when they were little...like bathtime or playground or reading to them.

I officially have the best pediatrician. In my time zone it is 9:00 pm and he just called to clarify why I needed a paper prescription for a medication. I had refills, and the message he got did not include my note that said the paper scrip was for Campus Meds which fulfills the everyday medications (not Epi-pens) for students attending a particular summer program. So my pediatrician called, asked me to clarify and then said sure--pick it up tomorrow.
It's 9:00 at night... that's overtime in anyone's book.
This is the pediatrician who, at two weeks, took one look at my baby and said--food allergies. The baby had eczema (atopic dermatitis, excuse me) and the Dr. said--the baby's nursing--what else could it be but what you're eating-- so no more: eggs, soy, corn, peanuts, oranges, and not too much milk and cheese. Guess what--eczema cleared up. and the Dr. who suggested RAST testing and plenty of other smart moves too.
I officially have the best pediatrician.

This weekend went to the fabulous FAAN conference (www.foodallergy.org) and heard Hugh Sampson speak on new research toward tolerating foods; a nutrionist that made me certain I need to do a food diary for my child and a wonderful speech by a dad who has been there, done that and gotten the t-shirt!
All in all a great day to network with other parents about socializing, about how to do a food challenge--about how our kids are dealing with new foods and how they are willing to step in and take charge situations all across their lives because they know how to advocate for themselves about their allergies.
Pretty heady stuff-- and seeing old friends and watching the kids gravitate to each other like magnets. It was great-- everyone there is one of us-- with Epi-pens in one hand and a lunchpack in the other-- and it's easy to share the good and the bad and the everyday. I met a woman who has a 2 year old with the same allergies as my 16 year old. Well seeing me--having made it this far--and seeing my kid standing tall next to me, obviously in find health and welfare very nearly overwhelmed her. She was ready to go home and know that all would be OK. very moving.
check out the next conference in your neck of the woods.

this is the second week my oven is broken. I shouldn't say broken--crippled. I can turn it on for about twenty minutes before it beeps and flashes a code that means I have to turn it off...or it turns itself (!) off...like some alien robot. I never knew I used my oven so much--of course the burners work--otherwise I'd be crippled-- but the oven. What about roasted zucchini and peppers; what about a roast chicken (FYI I forgot and started one, then when *F3* started flashing, I turned off oven and put chicken in huge stockpot with carrots and onions. I turned the flame up pretty high and tilted the pot top so air escaped--and cooked that chicken. Before serving I put in the oven again for about twenty minutes...just the time it took for my alien robot oven to shut off again. The chicken was browned and nicely juicy and cooked....but I was worn out!
so I continue to be ovenless--for anything over twenty minutes.

Did You Know?

• Egg substitutes may contain egg whites; egg replacers do not. (Always read those labels.)
• Baby food in jars can make excellent snacks: They pack /travel well and can be eaten with a straw if necessary. (The sweet potatoes were a big favorite at my house.)
• Sometimes shipping dry foodstuffs to your destination can relieve some of the anxiety of trying to find what you need once you arrive. Most hotel front desks are very nice about holding packages. Note, however, always take what you need for your travel day-plus extra in case of delays or the unexpected.
• When at a restaurant and served a meal that is incorrect--like cheese on the burger--keep the plate and ask for a replacement, as the meal is still as dangerous if only doctored--like the cheese is scraped off the top.
• A stainless steel thermos--though it has to be heated up by filling with boiling water for a few minutes--keeps foods much hotter than the plastic version.
• You can often buy direct from a manufacturer on those items your household uses frequently--can be less expensive than the specialty store, and more convenient. Fruit leathers, rice milks, baking mixes, and candy are all items we buy direct.

Cooking . Cooking . Cooking.

Sometimes it seems that all I do is cook. Not only breakfast lunch and dinner, but many breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Every day. All day. I figure--conservatively--I have cooked over 6600 meals in the last 15 years. That’s only counting two meals a day for 10 months a year--I’ve shaved a number of meals for ordering in, going out, dinner at Mom’s, vacations …

All that cooking can be tiring. Not just the banging pots and pans around, but the thinking of what to make and when and how. The planning, the shopping, the putting meat to fire–-all of it ends up being too much sometimes.

To make matters worse, I’m getting to be a boring cook. I make chicken and pot roast. Broccolli and roasted carrots. I make a pork roast and applesauce and a salad--when I was growing up, that was Thursday night dinner. I’m that boring.

But what can I do--I have to cook for my food allergic kid. Dinner has to come from somewhere and that’s usually from me. As college looms, I know I’ll miss it, but right now I’m stuck in the boring middle. So what to do?

The first trick I tried was pull all the vegetables out of the refrigerator and line them up on the counter. Then group the compatible ones--like onions and potatoes or carrots and zucchini. When I got a grouping together I figured out how to cook them: sautee in oil and garlic? Roast? Boil (no!) And then I tried it--and I added chicken breast sliced, or leftover rice and a healthy dose of cilantro.

OK--some of the combinations were odd: ground veal with carrots, onions and diced potatoes. Some were great: fresh spinach wilted in a little oil and lots of garlic. (Note though that a huge bag of spinach melts down to a serving for two, barely--who knew.)

But mission accomplished: I stopped looking at the food in the same old boring way. Butternut squash could be mashed and used as the filling for a vegetable lasagne with strips of onion, carrot and zucchini. Chicken thighs could be sautéed with hot sausage slices and served over rice. Cutlets could be breaded with potato pancake mix and flash fried with parsley. And my piece de resistance: zeppole without wheat.

I had a mix that promised Pizza Crust or Sandwich Bread--well neither of those ever worked without eggs. But mix a little salt, water and--wow -–I got zeppole when I dropped those handrolled balls into hot hot oil. With a little powdered sugar, they could pass at the St Jerome’s Italian Festival in Long Branch New Jersey!

So I’m still cooking, cooking, cooking. But, for the time being, I’m dazzling my family with allergy –free delights.

hey all of you out there--it's 10PM and not only do I know where my children are--I'm still cooking!!!
Tomorrow's lunch menu will be sliced pork, cooked carrotts, and brown rice bread with an applesauce and an energy bar for afternoon sports... the bread mix is new, and never gets unsoggy in the middle so I have to brown it in the broiler every morning before it pops in the lunch pack. what happened to Orgran Quick White Bread??? I loved that--so easy and never even needed egg substitutes. I am not a "let's go in the kitchen and bake some bread" kind of gal--so that Quick Mix was awesome for me...oh well...
gotta get the pork off the stove.

Went to a terrific food allergy luncheon today--that is a luncheon to raise money for a food allergy organization. Five hundred women--mostly--in the same room all for a common cause. Very moving and made me feel very Helen Reddy: I am Woman, hear me roar.
also, the sheer number of people there connected to someone with a food allergy really brings into sharper focus the rise in food allergies in the last 15-20 years. Most of the moms had little kids--and mine's a teenager. The increase is real; I didn't know but a few other food allergic families--and now there were 500 in one room. Granted this was in support of an organization, but the numbers are growing. And, the vast difference between now and when I had a young 'un is awareness. The public at large is more aware of food allergies (and the danger of them) than even 10 years ago. Thank goodness.
So, I will think on this large network that's out there, ready to raise awareness even more through education and ready to reach out a hand to help.

hope everyone's well out there. Just been thinking about the phenomenon that I call the "cold food" phenom. I am so happy sometimes that a camp/school/party can feed my kid, that I don't ask for them to do the nice things--like heat up the food I send-- or vary the menu from chicken and rice. I accept what's offered and don't push, because so often there's nothing offered. I'll hang up the phone and realize that I just OKayed a cold meal right from the pack I sent --because so often things do NOT go as you have carefully planned.
on the other hand, we went to dinner at family this week--and the cook called about all the ingredients, made only food my kid could eat and lots of variety--so I guess the moral is, take the good with the cold.

Been reading a few articles about food allergies, and while I like that food allergies are in the media, the slant that many of the pieces take is too negative for me. "oh woe is me" is not my kind of attitude. I surely know the extra effort food allergies take --with travel or for school and the stress food allergies add to everyday life. Call me Pollyanna here, but life is good. Spring comes, flowers bloom (alright so that comes with itchy eyes and runny noses...) our kids are learning to fend for themselves and we are more creative in our approach to life. see ya soon.

I just made another rocking cake--with a gluten free cake mix and egg replacer (I like Orgran). Went over big as a Monday night dessert. And, being a NYer, I was happy to read that restaurants in NY will now have posters with the six major allergens/pictures and exhort cooks and servers alike to respect food allergies-- I think Ming Tsai had a hand in this, so a shout out to him!

That Time of Year--Again

It’s Monday morning and you’re doing the final shopping for Easter (substitute as necessary: Passover, graduation) and your cousin calls and says “I’m making strudel for the holiday dessert and I know that Johnny is allergic to nuts, but it really doesn’t taste good without them, so I just wanted you to know.”

You hang up the phone and (circle one):

A. Scream

B. Cry

C. Laugh

D. Shake your head

E. All of the above

“All of the above” is the correct answer--and then you get the baking mix from the cupboard and learn how to make a strudel.

This is a typical conversation for a food allergic family. We’ve all been there, and we all know what it feels like to substitute one ingredient for another or forgo that special family recipe all together. Food allergies can cut us off our roots, our memories--and this is especially true around holiday celebrations when ritual meals, steeped in tradition, are the standard fare.

Personally, it hurts me--yes hurts me--that I can’t plunk down a plate of pasta for my son on Christmas Eve.

But I can’t. And neither can my mother or my Aunt Sadie. Instead, I can select a menu that does not include a pasta course--and no one will know the difference. I can ask Cousin Pesky to bring a green salad, since that would be ‘easier’ for her--and ditch the strudel altogether. I may feel a pinch at giving up a family tradition, but over the years I’ve already picked and chosen which traditions I keep anyway. Christmas Eve dinner is supposed to be the “fast” in Italian tradition: Fish courses before midnight and meat after. I’ve already given up that timeframe--I’m in bed by midnight--so why not serve the roast beef at 7:00?

What really makes the meal a tradition is that we gather our family and close friends to share it. That part doesn’t change.

On Thanksgiving my family always served ravioli then turkey. When I got married and some of my in-laws kept kosher, no big deal--we substituted pumpkin ravioli instead of cheese and meat. So when my son was diagnosed with wheat allergy, we shifted again--this time to an antipasto course where there’s lots of peppers and olives and meats that he can eat--and I can still include a nod to my Italian roots.

Of course, you must think ahead, prepare, and possibly substitute traditions--that’s a given in the food allergic household.

But, while the menu may need to change--the message of these meals does not. What we are eating should not be as important as who we are eating it with--no matter if it’s ravioli or rice cakes and jam.

The love, the sharing--as well as the laughter and gusto we bring to the table--are what truly matters and there is no substitute for that.

It's been while--you now how it is, life gets busy. I've been a boring cook these days and am trying to spice it up with different combinations of the foods I know--so instead of chickn thighs with garlic--I've added sliced hot or sweet Italian sausage--that went over big for dinner.
I have tried a few different cuts of meat too--did not like the chuck pot roast I got--too fatty and even when cooked for four hours, tough. But I liked "kebob" chunks--which are like first cut stew meat but in larger chunks--not a bad price tag either. And those I simply simmered with onions and garlic and salt and pepper over rice with some greens. That made a nice change from stew or meatloaf.
Also I made a great three layer birthday cake for my teen. Did I mention I am not a very good baker-- Three layers because without eggs the rice flour doesn't rise too high--and anyway who doesn't like that much frosting. Guests and all family liked it (witness second helpings) and I was pleased because aside from the thorny issue of how to get layers on top of one another without breaking --Any help out there???-- it looked, tasted great and wasn't too tough to make.

weathered a few storms this week. class trip --lots of preparing foods, but the director of food services (lots of emails to him too!) was great and my teen got the meals I cooked, served hot on a plate with the other kids--you all know what a victory that is. I made lunches and dinners, put each meal in a zippered plastic baggie and labelled it with a name, meal time and school name (just in case). The biggest challenge was the third day when lunch was on the bus--thank goodness for prosciutto--stays delicious while refrigerated or not. that and individual applesauces. whew.

And and overnight debate trip that only meant two meals to store. What I think is a riot is on Sunday, we were going out to lunch with old friends who suggested a burger and fries place which is great for us--easy to eat a burger without bun and fries were purportedly great. Well my teen --who with the debate group had gone to a TGIFridays at midnight and ordered a burger and fries--my teen went nuts about how possibly unsafe the lunch place was (I had asked about dedicated fryers) and how it's tough to try a new place!!! Ah the teenage years.

I was glad about the "Fridays " dinner-- spontaneity is what is so hard with allergies --and the camaraderie of it. I suppose I should have anticipated the spillover anxiety/ tiredness the next day. Live and learn . Hope all's well out there with you.

Well it's sumertime again--just kidding, but it is time to investigate summer programs for teens and just when one sounded really fun--friends going, fun program--whammo. The program can't provide meals for food allergies. Usually I would try to figure out a way, but this administrator was honest and honestly did not feel that the meals would work out well or safely, and I felt that a teenager shouldn't have all the responsibility of making meals or finding food--it's summer for pete's sake. So I hung up the phone feeling crushed. I felt angry that I had not called before my teen got interested-- that would have saved some heartache. Lots of anger --frustration--disappointment followed.
We always say that allergies shouldn't define these kids, shouldn't stop them from doing things,. Well, in reality, the allergies CAN redirect them, CAN even stop them in their tracks.